Alipheese Fateburn XVI
Skills As the monster lord, Alice's job description is maintaining order through power. Even after Pandora decreased her power level, making her more ridiculous feats now impossible, she's still a formidable foe with several physical, magical, and mental talents. In physical terms, strength is her greatest asset. While not inhumanly powerful, the raw magic running through her body allows her to shatter inanimate objects - but not living creatures - with a touch. Anything larger than a sword requires a prolonged touch to do so, and she cannot do this to anything with more mass than the average chair. That giant tail of hers is as strong and heavy as it looks, useful for binds and squeezing assaults. She's highly durable; in a sword fight, a clumsy blow or one inflicted by someone without a warrior's strength behind them will hardly scratch her. This especially applies on her tail, as her tough scales function like armor. Though average speed when upright, she's startlingly quick when slithering flat on her belly. Alice can unhinge her jaw far enough to swallow a grown man whole. She also has two additional mouths hidden under her scales. One, lined with strong tentacles to hold her victim, sits on the upper part of her tail. It drips with hypnotic mucus, which inflicts a calming, euphoric state upon them. After a couple minutes, it will make them enjoy the idea of being devoured. The other mouth, concealed in her tailtip, can rapidly drain fluids such as blood and saliva from a target to restore Alice's health and vitality. Though it can't devour anything larger than a cat with one gulp, it can still latch onto a larger target to drain them. Alice's hair is prehensile. It has the same druggy effect as the mouth on her torso, causing anyone it wraps around to fade into a docile, blissed-out haze. This takes a couple minutes to fully set in. She can also cause her fingers to split into dozens of long, slithering tentacles, providing her extra dexterity. Eye magic is Alice's preferred type of magic. With direct eye contact, she can inflict a variety of effects on others. How effective these skills are depends on how calm her target's mental state is - someone with a chaotic or weak mind, or who currently suffers from a lot of stress is an easy target, whereas someone with excellent control, willpower, or preparation will probably be completely immune. If she looks her target directly in the eyes while asking a question, she can force them to answer truthfully. She can also give commands in this way, compelling the target to obey. How effective this is depends, once again, on how calm her target's mental state is - a weak mind will be completely dominated, overridden with the single-minded desire to do as Alice desires, whereas a powerful mind will take it as a faint, easily ignored suggestion. The usual result, however, is an unbreakable command that will fade over time. She can also use direct eye contact to induce sleep, confusion, or seduction. These effects take a few seconds to "charge" beforehand, and causes her eyes to glow as a visual cue, making them possible to dodge by averting your gaze or blinking. They also fade with time. Sleep is self-explanatory, and augmented by the fact that Alice can control the dreams of those she knocks out. Confusion causes her target to hallucinate and babble, making them completely unaware of their surroundings. Seduction causes her target to fall in lust with her. She only uses it for psychological warfare - making her opponent halt the fight to throw themselves at her is a lovely way to humiliate and demoralize them. The latter two effects fade quickly. Alice's elemental magic centers around fire and ice. (Although she technically can use water magic as well, she's so damn bad at it that it's better to pretend she can't.) She can shoot torrents of fire and ice from her hands, as well as cause spontaneous combustion within eyeshot. She can cause the air around anything - or anyone - within close enough range to heat up or freeze over, the extreme temperature causing a burst of damage..and in the latter case, often resulting in numbness and temporary paralysis. Alice has various assorted magic as well. She can create barriers large enough to seal away a room, possesses limited shapeshifting to disguise herself as human, can turn invisible (but can't use any other magic in this state), and can fly without wings. She can heal others by sacrificing her own energy and vitality. As a general ratio, Alice loses a fourth of the health her target gains. She cannot do anything to a target that their bodies would not be able to do naturally - regenerating a normal human's limbs or fixing terminal illnesses, for example, is a no-go. Alice can harness pure dark magic as well. Doing so is strenuous, requires her to concentrate beforehand, and is impossible if she is already tired or fatigued. She can use it to attack a target's senses, which causes their vision to teeter and blur, and overtakes their hearing with loud crashing and roars. This lasts for a few moments. Once again, a calm mind is the key to avoiding or negating this. She can also shoot tangible darkness as an attack, more effective than her usual fire and ice. Alice has an empathetic sense allowing her to discern traces of memory, emotion, or magic left on an object. With a touch, she can discern information about the object's owner. With a lick, she can get an even clearer and more vivid reading. Her sense of smell is extraordinary as well, good for tracking and identifying different sorts of magic. From birth, Alice has trained to become a ruler, and as such is quite skilled at and knowledgable about leading others. She's far brighter than she seems, and her intellect truly shines on the battlefield, where she directs others with swift, brilliant strategy. Although Alice would rather fight with her tail and magic, she's an excellent swordswoman. She knows all the legendary cursed sword techniques passed down through the generations of Alices, all of which strike faster, stronger, and more effectively than your run of the mill combatant can. When off the battlefield and out of the throne room, Alice is much less impressive. Given her education's single-minded focus on being powerful and commanding, she never learned many of the basic survival skills your average person takes for granted. She cannot cook even the simplest meal, has no idea how to wash clothes, and is pretty much utterly incapable of taking care of herself. Due to her confrontational relationship with the goddess Illias, Alice cannot benefit from holy or light magic, and is weak to lightning and electricity. Even light spells intended to heal/buff her will burn her, and holy attacks do more damage to her than usual. Lamia or not, Alice is still mortal. She's as vulnerable to hunger, thirst, fatigue, injury, and death as any human. Additionally, lamias are one of the monster races that include sexual activity among their basic needs. For Alice, going without sex is like going without food, and it is possible to literally starve her to death by imprisoning her and denying her intercourse. Because lamias are cold-blooded, their muscular reaction time becomes sluggish in cold environments. Expose her to a cold enough environment or hit her with enough ice skills, and Alice's speed, strength, and ability to resist sicknesses/poisons will wane. Alice has a debilitating phobia of ghosts. Anything completely unscientific freaks her out to a point, but ghosts are a special level of bad - just hearing about them can cause her to clam up and shiver, and she's prone to succumbing to mindless panic or even passing out when one is present. Personality Alice's scathing, superior, and often outright insulting demeanor makes her hard to get along with. The monster lord's high birth gave her a sheltered outlook, and she's used to getting what she wants when she wants. Compliments and nice words from Alice are astonishingly rare, and tend to come back-handed or accompanied by larger insults. Alice always speaks her mind and never sugarcoats her harsh words. No matter who you are, if she thinks you're stupid, hypocritical, or useless, she'll tell you. Constantly. Alice is more intelligent and introspective than a first glance betrays, and she's constantly struck by the posturing and self-deception of those around her. Although she doesn't mean ill, her cold mouthiness is doubtlessly a fault. She's slightly harsher towards humans than monsters. Monsters are her kin, her friends, and her "cute little subordinates." Humans, however, have caused her anguish and suffering, and she has little experience with them. However, after traveling for a few months alongside a kind, selfless human, Alice's outlook has softened considerably, and she can no longer deny that humans are people too. Once, she would eat any human on a whim; now, she has to actually dislike them first. Nevertheless, she still has a notable preference for the monstrous races, and is more inclined to show them assistance and kindness. Alice tends to form strong opinions about others, both good and bad. She's very loyal. When someone shows her kindness, respect, and empathy, she's quick to warm up to them. Since Alice doesn't like others knowing she cares - it's bad for her reputation, and makes her feel vulnerable - she does have an unfortunate tendency to ramp up the verbal abuse and ice when she realizes someone's wiggling into her heart...but the growing traces of sugar and compassion that reluctantly accompany it makes her true feelings clear. On the other hand, it's easy to get on Alice's bad side, and once you're there, her hatred is endlessly petty and cruel. Cross her in a small way and you'll never hear the end of it; cross her in a big way, and she'll have no qualms about ending your life on the spot. Her grudges tend to extend to anything and anyone related to the object of her scorn, once to the point of damning an entire race to oppression due to one member's selfish actions. Alice has a "live and let live" outlook regarding morality. She believes the world is composed of shades of grey, and is slow to declare any act evil. She despises people who judge others and claim they're righteous; since no one is perfect, it's all hypocritical posturing in Alice's eyes. Alice is quick to point out that even history's greatest villains believed they were doing what was necessary, and tries her hardest to understand all sides in a conflict. (The exception to this philosophy is religion, which Alice believes is nothing but pure, irredeemable slavery.) She sees war, oppression, and suffering as inevitable parts of life, and rolls her eyes at those who claim to fight for justice or peace....even though deep down, she longs for a world where everyone can live in harmony. This hands-off neutrality reflects Alice's own moral code as well - despite often engaging in immoral acts, she basically has a good heart, and is never actively malicious unless she believes the target brought it on themselves. Food is almost always on her mind. Stuffing her face is a surefire way to get Alice over any bad moods, or to stop her from protesting when something is upsetting or annoying her. She's excited to try absolutely any new dishes she hears about, and has a seemingly bottomless appetite. She's eaten intelligent beings before without a shred of remorse. Beneath her confrontational nobility, Alice conceals a more childish side. When excited, it springs to the forefront, even though she'll try to conceal it. New, interesting things make her hyperactive and giddy, eager to let loose and play around. She has a low tolerance for boredom, and has no shame amusing herself with silly little tasks like drawing in the sand or collecting bugs when the current "main attraction" is too dull to keep her attention. Alice has a fair amount of internal conflict and angst due to the one big mistake she made as a child. Thanks to her, her mother's death was completely in vain...and the same action indirectly caused death, terror, and warfare all around the world. As such, she places little value on her own life, and would give it up in a heartbeat for a worthy cause. Alice's longing to martyr herself and pay for her crimes is outright suicidal - although explicitly her ultimate goal is to end the war between monsters and humans, her biggest plans to do so always revolve around her own death, as if she subconsciously sees her own existence as detrimental to the happiness of others. Her mother died for peace, but since Alice ruined that plan, she thinks it's only proper that she should sacrifice herself in the same way. Appearance As a Lamia, the most notable thing about Alice is her serpentine frame: from the waist down, she has a heavy snakelike tail, uncoiling to a full thirty feet long. Dark red scales cover it, gradually becoming lighter as they reach the tip, where her scales are flame red. Small groups of lighter colored spots dot her tail. Ribbed, lighter crimson scales line her belly. Though large and powerful, her tail moves with a predator's grace, effortlessly maneuvering around obstacles as she slithers from place to place. Her tail's movements reflect her mood. When confident, it sways with hypnotic playfulness. When excited, it wags like a puppy dog's tail. When sad, it droops like dead weight. Even putting her tail aside, Alice tends to draw attention. Her exotic features and confident, clearly powerful demeanor make sure of that. The tall lamia's skin is soft purple, with darker purple marks swirling down her left side. They begin on her cheek, spiral down over her arms and torso, and end at her hips. She has a light silver hime cut, reaching down to where a human's knees would be. Her thick bangs reach below her eyebrow, decorated in the middle by a dark red eye-like marking. Large, dark purple horns crown her head, flopping downwards towards her face like curving rabbit ears. Her sly eyes are yellow, with thick, dark eyelashes. She has elven ears; long, pointed features that gently sweep upwards. Her tongue is prehensile, and can extend to two feet long. Overall, her facial features are sharp and feminine. Her frame is slender yet toned, with very large breasts. Due to her desire to appear stoic and noble, Alice tends to make sure her body language and expressions are minimal and controlled. However, she's hardly a master of wearing masks; when excited, depressed, or angry, this quickly slips. Her happier moods - the ones where she has trouble containing her gushing - tend to come alongside lots of indignant stuttering and blushing, proving her embarrassment at being caught without proper control of herself. Alice's preferred human form is merely a slight modification of her lamia form. Her skin tone turns rosy, and her tail disappears in favor of long, shapely legs and feet. The dark purple markings on her right side continue to trickle down, painting her right leg down to the ankle. Alice tends to wear very little clothing - she prefers light, skimpy armor that barely covers what it needs to. This is normal around her world's monster population - she wears the small bit she does not because of any notions of modesty or issues with nudity, but as a fashion statement. She often adorns herself with elaborate, fancy jewelry, and has a notable preference for gold and rubies. Dark colors make up most of her wardrobe. She always wears two pink flowers in her hair. Though they look like a simple decoration, they are actually a living creature under Alice's command. Relationships Current: *Blackarachnia *Johnny Cage *Natsume Takashi Past: *Beelzemon History Alice is the daughter of Alice XV and an unknown human father. (Her father's absence neither troubles nor puzzles her - as a member of an all-female race, it's considered normal.) Alice XV, just like the other nine Alices before her, was the monster lord, who ruled over the world's monster population. Her empathetic, caring nature was clear in both her kind reign and the tender care she showed her only daughter. She wished to end the constant warring between humans and monsters. However, she knew that neither side would ever truly accept a forced truce. They needed a milestone to signify the beginning of a new era...and the best way to do that was to give them a story to tell. She spread rumors and tales of what an evil, bloodthirsty tyrant she was, prompting heroes to come after to slay her. Once they killed her, they could say the cause of the war was dead, and therefore both sides could calm down and have true peace. It was the ultimate sacrifice; giving her life and tarnishing her good name for the sake of the world. When Alice XVI was but a child, a small party of heroes came to the castle to kill Alice XV. She locked her daughter in a magic prison to stop her from interfering, then went outside to “fight” the humans, allowing herself to be butchered. Soon, the heroes noticed something was wrong. The monster lord shouldn't be that easy to kill. As she drew her final breaths, the truth finally dawned on them; she was sacrificing herself to end the fighting. Touched by her benevolence, the heroes resolved to strive to furfill her wishes and use her death for the greater good. Until Alice XVI escaped her prison and stormed in. Once she saw the group of humans standing over her mother's corpse, she went berserk, killing two of them and severely injuring the remaining two. After escaping, the survivors gave up their previous resolution, assured by Alice XVI's brutality that monsters truly were the dangerous, bloodthirsty creatures they feared them to be. They formed Illias Kreuz, a terrorist organization devoted to the genocide of all monsters. Tamamo, queen of the kitsunes, adopted the now-orphaned Alice, as per her mother's last wishes. Hoping to stem the flames of hatred towards humans already kindled in the traumatized young lamia, she ordered that she not be allowed any contact with human beings until she was of age, and ordered her subordinate kitsunes to bully and mistreat her, so that Alice would realise that cruelty is not an exclusively human trait. When Alice came of age, she performed the monster lord ceremony to claim her crown, which involved defeating all challengers who wished for her title. Her opponents were Tamamo, Alma Elma (queen of the succubi), Erubetie (queen of the slimes), and Granberia (the world's greatest swordswoman). After Alice defeated the four, they swore loyalty to her, becoming the Four Heavenly Knights: her greatest supporters and advisers. At twenty-one, Alice left the castle to travel the world and gain experience. One of her primary goals was to investigate the true circumstances of the Slaughter of Remia, a cataclysm thirty years ago where an entire city of humans and monsters, who once lived in unusual harmony together, were obliterated in a single day. Most people believed it had been ordered by Alice XV, but Alice refused to buy into that. Though she wouldn't admit it, Alice was also looking for an excuse to hate humanity. Up until now, her law regarding human had been only to hurt them in self-defense. However, she did still blame them for her mother's death, and knew that if she saw human predjudice and evil firsthand, she would be justified in extracting revenge. While flying south, someone ambushed Alice, knocking her out and sending her crashing to the ground below. (Alice didn't see her assailant, but has a very strong suspicion that it was the goddess Illias.) She landed on the southern continent of Illias, near Illias Village. When she woke up, she found a human boy standing over her in shock. He introduced himself as Luka, a hero apprentice. Shocked that someone wanting to be a hero would speak civilly to a monster, rather than killing her on sight, she grilled him with questions, eventually finding out that he wished to help create a world where monsters and humans live hand-in-hand. Painfully reminded of the dream that orphaned her, Alice dismissed him as foolish and let him escape. However, something about Luka intrigued her, and she couldn't shake the feeling off. She later snuck into the boy's house, and after a long conversation with him, decided to accompany him on his journey as he traveled to defeat the Monster Lord...who, unbeknownst to him, would be right next to him the whole time. However, she refused to assist him in fighting any monsters who attacked him during his quest, promising that she would simply let him get captured or eaten if it came to that. She couldn't go around beating up her subjects for some human. While on the road, she began teaching Luka cursed sword techniques and training him to be a better warrior. She didn't do it out of selflessness; she merely did it to entertain herself and make his battles more fun to watch. When the pair travel north to Illiasburg, they discover Granberia taking over the town though brute force. Luka attempts to stop her and gets steamrolled, but Alice pulls rank to make her leave. After a sidequest, they attempt to head north to the central continent Sentora, but are unable, due to raging storms Alma Elma created to cut off human trade. To weather it, they need the legendary posiedon's bell...and soon discover that Tamamo has it. When speaking to the kitsune, she lets Alice's true identity slip, unaware that it was a secret. She and Alice then ask Luka if he wishes to fight them, knowing who they are. Luka refuses, since Tamamo was doing nothing wrong and Alice was not the evil tyrant he had been expecting. Though Luka was still weak, he took to Alice's training well, and had managed to stand against three of the heavenly knights without becoming afraid or second-guessing himself. He also showed potental she'd never heard of in a human – he learned to miracurlously heal his wounds, and became dangerous when asleep. Furthermore, his kind actions had proven that not all humans were the villains she had been hoping for. Therefore, she toyed with the idea fof using him to furfill her mother's failed plan for peace – if she turned Luka into a great hero and let him kill her, she could take the place her mother intended to take as a sacrifice. Once they arrived on Sentora, they first settled in Port Natalia, a town where mermaids and humans live together as equals. While Luka is at first awed by seeing a small part of his dream in reality, the moment is quickly shattered when Illias Kreuz members bomb the school for mermaid children. They next go to meet the San Illia king for advice, and are quickly received, as Illias told the king in a dream that Luka was coming. While listening to the king's roundabout and worthless advice – find magical gems to give to the three sages, and then come back to receive the holy goddess sword – Alice decided to take Luka seriously and go through with her ponderings, grooming him to be strong enough to slay her. She destroyed the goddess sword with a single tap, causing the king to have a mental breakdown, then told Luka the real path to power: travel around Sentora and get power from the four elemental spirits. After a couple more sidequests, they find Slyph, the spirit of wind. Luka impresses her and acquires her power. They then travel to Safina, rescue a princess, and acquire Gnome, the spirit of earth. Next, they head to Noah. The most notable town they visited here was Plantsect Village. Although Luka had heard it was a place where different species of monsters coexisted, it was actually a warzone between plant-type and insect-type monsters. The plants' sad tale prompts Luka to join their side, despite Alice's warnings. He helps them win the war...and is horrifed when they then begin to treat the insects as spoils of war, abusing and enslaving them. Luka goes berserk and wipes out both armies, and the pair leaves. After a dangerous encounter with Erubitie, Luka acquires Undine, the spirit of water. Their final destination on Sentora was Gold, the northern region. Their most notable stop here was Grangold Kingdom, where humans used strange technology to create golems bound to obey them and enslave antgirls. Apalled to see her subjects treated like objects, Alice took it onto herself to investigate, using her hypnotic eyes to make a scientist spill that an angel gave them the machines. The mmonsters later escaped, attempting to take over the town and enslave the humans as vengance. Although Alice supported this revolution 100% and advised Luka to let it be, he stepped in and helped make peace between the two factions. After a couple more sidequests, Luka gained salamander, the fire spirit. To reach Hellgondo, the final continent, they needed a ship from Goldport. But they soon found that since the Slaughter of Remia, no ships had sailed between the continents. Tall mountans stopped ships from docking directly at Hellgondo, and a garuda once flew passengers over them, but she had been killed during the massacre. The pair therefore had to go on a mission to revive a garuda egg. Illias Kreuz found the egg before they did, futily hoping to smash it. This lead them to an encounter with Lazarus; the current leader of Illias Kreuz, and one of the people Alice had horribly maimed so many years ago. Lazarus revealed that he murdered Luka's father - the other hero who had survived that day - because he had begun to revert to Alice XV's ideals and started viewing monsters as people. He also revealed that one of the people Alice had killed was the woman he loved, and so he would never forgive her or monsterkind. Too consumed by guilt and self-loathing from Lazarus's speech to truly harm him, Alice merely turned him to stone so they could take the egg and revive the garuda. At Hellgondo, they made three stops. The ruins of Remia came first. Alice finally got to investigate the slaughter, and found angel feathers, confirming her suspicions that Illias was the true mastermind. She kept her mouth shut, knowing how much faith Luka held in the goddess. Next, they stopped by the Sealed Sinner's Prison. Though it was famous as the prison where Illias tormented the worst criminals and villains, they discovered that it was simply meant to hold Luka's ancestor, the legendary hero Lazarus. Their final stop, and the finale of their journey, was Alice's castle. Luka still wanted peace between monster and human..and since he already knew Alice supported the cause, all he had to do was defeat the Four Heavenly Knights waiting within to make them agree as well. Alice wished Luka good luck and bade him farewell. Luka didn't know it, but he would see her again soon. All this time, Alice had been grooming and training him to kill her, and the time had finally come to sacrifice her life and pay for her mistake. At the back of her chambers, she placed a treasure chest containing a ribbon Luka had bought for her back at Noah: a keepsake to remember her once she was gone. She watched from afar as Luka defeated her greatest generals, then summoned him for the final battle. She pretended as if she didn't know Luka, treating him as she would treat any human hero who'd come to destroy her. However, Luka's protests and begging for her to stop acting strange broke her resolve and her mask. She told him how much she valued the time they'd spent together, then attacked with all her might. The former allies fought fiercely, holding nothing back..and after a while, they'd reached the point where one more stab would finish Alice off. Alice forced herself to be strong. She congratulated him for his skill and urged him to finish her. Before Luka could make his decision, black chords emerged from the castle floor, pulling the bloody, battered Alice away from the conflict and into Pandora. Pandora History Alice arrived in Pandora July 12, Year 1. Approximately a week later, she began work at Nine Circles as a dancer.